Night Terrors
by talonsandwings
Summary: Living with a PTSD victim grants you a certain degree of experience in coping. But when John's nighttime episodes take a turn for the worse, Sherlock must reluctantly rethink his battle strategy. T for violence/relationship/whatever. Background S/J.


_**Oh, God, it's so overdone. But I did it. Standard warnings. S/J, but not the direct tie of the story. Enjoy if you wish.**_

_**Could possibly spawn a three-parter, but don't want to jump to conclusions. Need more data.  
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_**These characters are not and will not, sadly, ever be any possession of mine. They are the original creative property of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and are currently being leased to the lovely Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss.**_

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><p>John is having a nightmare. Sweat has pooled, dried, and recollected on his brow. The sheets surrounding him are mangled. Tiny flutters, wounded sounds, sounds that were never meant to come out of John Watson, are living and dying in his throat.<p>

Sherlock is sitting on the extreme edge of the mattress, watching John. His knees are pulled up to his chin. His eyes catch every movement made on the other end of the bed, analyzing each finger twitch, each bob of the Adam's apple, each moan. Cold air from the fan across the room hisses against his naked body, but he knows better than to move.

He sits and watches, because he hasn't the faintest idea what else he's supposed to do.

_Limb movement. Vocalizing. Indicates stage 4 sleep as opposed to REM._

_ Inference: Not a standard dream. Night terror._

_ Conclusion: John is experiencing the deepest form of sleep possible. There is no point in trying to wake him up._

Sherlock's teeth grate against his lower lip. Somehow, in this particular instance, deduction is providing no reassurance.

Without any warning, John lets out a thrash. Sherlock's toes curl back instinctively as the sheets are jerked further away in the series of vicious rolls and jerks that follows. John's left shoulder, the shoulder where Sherlock can still make out scar tissue in the moonlight, keeps twitching backwards. Full spasm.

_I would prefer this stop now._

His own thought annoys him, based jointly on its uselessness and his inability to delete it.

Reason has told him to keep away, from the moment he was jerked out of his own sleep by a scream and a fist in the face. The muscle contraction that had caused it was perfectly understandable, accounting for John's current state. And Sherlock's plan, in turn, was a logical one. Remain as distanced as possible in order to minimize any unintentional harm to John or to himself. Monitor closely on the chance things escalated. Ultimately, allow the state to pass.

As content as Sherlock is to follow this plan of action, it falls through completely when John lets out a guttural scream and crashes to the floor.

"John."

By the time Sherlock reaches him, John has almost knocked the bedside table over on himself. As far as Sherlock's concerned, the time for preemptive thought has ended.

_First:_ He pulls John out into the open floor, arms looped through armpits. The sheets are dragged off the bed in the process, but separating John from furniture is the goal right now. He can't bother to worry about anything else.

_Second: _He doesn't make a noise when John kicks him in the stomach or bites his arm, raising blood. He simply works around John's still-dangerous limbs as he unravels the web of blankets that has begun to strangle them both. He doesn't remember where he throws it.

_Third:_ He gathers John into his lap. The smaller man's legs are making too much movement to be collected, so they splay away at twisting and contorting angles. Sherlock concerns himself instead with holding John's torso steady, the best shot he has at stopping John from hurting himself. He's aware of (but couldn't care less about) the bruises rising on his face and arms as the fit enters its death throes.

Within minutes, the room falls quiet. To Sherlock's own surprise, he marvels at the stillness of John, as if he'd forgotten what normalcy was in the mere space of half an hour. He finds himself stroking the sweat from John's forehead, pulling his once-flailing arms in to keep his now-shivering chest warm. It's something of a comfort to be able to hold John properly now, to rest his cheek on the smooth curve of John's hair as the fit fades.

But peace isn't on them yet. As the attack passes, John begins to cry.

It is very different, in that it's silent. John hardly moves. Without any ceremony, water simply begins to roll across his face. If Sherlock focuses, he can see the hint of a lip quiver or a brief tightening of the jaw. Against his own stomach, he feels the childlike, undoing heaves of John's unheard sobs.

As the tears gather, he wipes these away, too.

Finally, John's breathing stabilizes and his eyes remain dry. For a while Sherlock simply sits there, half of John in his lap, stroking his short spikes of hair and listening to the calm whistle of his breathing with eyes closed.

He decides he's never felt this degree of relief in his life.

.

The next morning, John wakes up to find himself on the floor beneath a carefully arranged collection of blankets. His leg, which hasn't bothered him in ages, is throbbing like mad. Most importantly, he realizes that he's cocooned within Sherlock, whose face is plastered against the pillows in completely hopeless sleep.

He could bother to wonder how they got there, but for the moment he doesn't. He'll think about those things later, along with _why does Sherlock have a nasty bruise on his arm_ and _how did the bedside lamp get knocked on the floor._

Golden sunlight is filtering in through the window. Night is over. Sherlock's arm is cradling his waist and he's whistling through his nose, the way he always does when he winds up face-down in bed.

_Well, floor now. _

_No. Don't think about that. Don't question it._

For the moment, John Watson simply buries himself inside Sherlock and drifts back to sleep.


End file.
